IPNEWS-Monrovia: As the race to the pending 2023 presidential and legislative elections draws closer with about 12 months to go, a former ally of incumbent President George Weah has disclosed that candidate Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) did not promise or produce an agenda how he intended to lead Liberia following the elections.
Speaking to the media on the poor state of affairs of Liberia under President Weah’s CDC-led government over the weekend in Margibi County, Mr. Benoni Urey, political leader of the opposition All Liberian Party (ALP) stated the former football icon, is still obsessed with playing football with the lives of Liberians, instead of working harder to improve their living conditions.
The Liberian businessman-turned-politician grieved that President Weah is seriously dribbling Liberian electorates, who he claimed, made a mistake to elect him (Weah) to the Presidency in 2017 despite not presenting a convincing platform other than showing himself on television playing football.
“Mr. Weah didn’t promise anything; he never gave any speech; he never participated in any debate; the only thing he did was to bring television showing himself playing football. He’s still playing football, he’s dribbling your”, says Urey as he was also quoted by The New Dawn newspaper. Party.
Flashback: Cllr. Winston Tubman then CDC standard bearer and George Weah then CDC running mate in 2011. Mr. Urey supported their ticket that year.
Ironically, in 2011, Mr. Urey supported the George Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) in its second quest against President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government, which of course it lost despite having former Liberia’s UN Special Representative to Somalia, Cllr. Winston Tubman as its standard bearer, while Mr. Weah was the running mate.
But in 2017, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) entered a political marriage with the former ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP) of now jailed former Liberian president Charles Taylor, for his role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Also, former House Speaker Alex Tyler’s Liberia People’s Democratic Party (LPDP) is also part of the 2017 political marriage with the CDC, and thus becoming the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
At the World Bank Community in Kakata in Margibi County, where the County Chapter of Urey’s ALP over the weekend endorsed former Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai’s bid for the Presidency, the ALP leader blamed the current leadership deficit in the country on alleged voters’ mistake at the poll in 2017.
Mr. Urey lamented: “It’s the mistake all of us or some of us made that is causing this problem today, if we had voted wisely, we will never be where we are today.”
The ALP political leader observed that President Weah is making the road smooth or easier for the opposition bloc for 2023, given the way his government is proceeding with the country.
According to him, he feels the pain of Liberians, who stood in long queues for days just to purchase a (25kgs) bag of rice, adding that Mr. Boakai is the best person to address the problems of Liberia.
Flashback: CDC standard bearer George Weah in 2017 during one of their political rallies.
But interestingly, Mr. Urey’s statement about a strong opposition contradicts his ALP party’s exit from the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) along with former Vice President Boakai which disappointingly disintegrated the once formidable opposition collaboration.
It can be recalled it was Mr. Urey who took a constituent member of the CPP, the Alternative National Congress (ANC) and its leadership to court on allegation of altering their original Framework Document, but in the end a Supreme Court of Liberia’s decision to uphold the right of the ALP and Unity Party to leave the CPP, led to the nullification of the charges of against the ANC and its leaders, including Alexander Cummings, party chairman Senator Daniel Naatehn and Secretary General Cllr. Aloysius Toe.
Mr. Urey was also accused of making a pre-mature political statement in the embryonic stage of the CPP, by politically endorsing UP political leader Joseph Boakai as his preferred choice to lead the CPP, when their Framework Document was still being drafted. The CPP had created a platform that all interested political leader of their constituent parties who wanted to be standard bearer of the CPP would be given the opportunity to canvass and convince partisans of the constituent members of the CPP why they should elect them as standard bearer of the Collaboration.
In the end, Mr. Urey’s ALP and former Vice President Joseph Boakai’s UP withdrew from the CPP following the throwing out of the alleged forgery and alteration case, by the Liberian government through the Ministry of Justice.
However, the Alternative National Congress and the Liberty Party under the chairmanship of Musa Hassan Bility has formed a new CPP, with the ANC political leader serving as its Standard Bearer, while Mr. Bility serves as National Chairman. According to them, the CPP is opened to more collaboration with other parties in their drive to make President George Weah a one-term president.
